Karstad Biodiversity Paintings: adventures in the colour of Canada

oil on canvas 8x8 in.       $400 19 March 2017 found me discovering a scene to paint, among the branches of White Cedar, south-east of our house in Bishops Mills, Ontario. This is a line of Cedars between a brushy old field and a natural clearing that Fred calls the "nutrient depletion glade". This is a project to preserve the historic character of our agriculture-impoverished, shallow-soil parkland - at least in one place - while elsewhere our land management activities gradually add nutrients.  The shallow soil over bedrock was thoroughly stripped of nutrients by grazing livestock.

"Musquash Bog" oil on canvas 36 x 24 in. 8 July 2013 found me wandering about, entranced, in the most beautiful bog I've ever seen - near Gooseberry Road, Musquash, New Brunswick. From the photos that I took that day, I painted the botanical detail,  "Cloudberry Kiss" , a portrait of a ripe "Bakeapple" berry, traditionally harvested here by local residents.

"Cardinalflower in Shade" (oil on canvas 10 x 20 in. framed) 6 August 2016 found me rejoicing over flaming spikes of Cardinalflowers in bloom on a steep creekbank thick with Buttonbush and Decadon , near its outlet into  Upper Rock Lake at Opinicon Road, 8 kilometres northwest of Battersea, Ontario. We had just come from helping staff and volunteers of Nature Conservancy Canada in a cleanup bee at the old cottage site on Fishing Lake, where we'd discovered the rare freshwater mussel Ligumia nasuta in 2015. Now, as Fred walked the shore of Upper Rock Lake for mussels and snails (finding a couple of Pyganodon grandis mussel shells, a couple of Brown Mystery snails,  Campeloma decisum , and a dozen adult Banded Mystery Snails, Viviparus georgianus - strangely "peeled" by a predator).... I photographed the Cardinalflowers for a painting. Photographing them in the direct sunlight did not work. The red was too bright for the camera, and glared out to or...

                                             oil on canvas 5 x 8 in  $275 1 February 2017 finds me sitting on my painting caddy in the snow, in front of the Sports Car Factory in Hallville, Ontario, working on the first painting in what I hope will be a series - of one of my favourite anthropogenic places in eastern Ontario.  Rather like a museum, both inside and out,  there are old cars and parts of cars leaning against walls, and parked and piled by the Ashes, Elms, and Apples around the perimeter of the yard. A monstrous ancient tractor parked in a sunny corner on the south side of the building, waits like a patient draft horse until it is wanted for pushing snow or rearranging old Jaguars, Austins, Mercedes, and Landrovers collected for parts. I love wandering about with my camera, capturing images of curved metal of various antiquity,...

"Sydenham Woods" oil on canvas 12 x 24 in. 22 September 2016  found me painting the slope of a forested ridge, southeast of Alvinston, Ontario. Yesterday we drove in to a waypoint we'd been given, thinking it was a rendezvous with the Ontario Nature field team, driving in along the narrow track through mature Carolinean forest to prospect for a painting site. We drove back out again to find the field party on the opposite side of the river, and there I painted the Sydenham Sycamore . So on this day we parked outside the woods and walked in to the site we'd selected for the second commissioned painting - the trunk of a majestic Burr Oak, the great smooth trunk forking above my head, and the scene looking down through the sun-splashed woods toward the unseen Sydenham River. 

"Sydenham Sycamore"  oil on canvas 20 x 24 in. 20 September 2016 found me on the bank of the Sydenham River, 4.3 km southeast of Alvinston, Ontario, painting the joined double trunks of a huge Sycamore tree as Fred waded the shallows, searching for freshwater mussels.  This part of the Sydenham River flows through land that has recently been acquired for conservation by Ontario Nature, and we were there with staff and volunteers to survey the river for its general biodiversity and rare mussel species.   This spot was perfect for the first of two paintings that commissioned by Ontario Nature. I set up my easel as close to the edge of the clay bank as possible, fascinated by the big old leaning Sycamore, its roots undercut by the river, its leafy crown towering high above the other river-edge trees - and how the mottled bark of its younger trunk was as smooth as my arm, while the bark of its main trunk was dark and scaly. Down in the river there was much exc...

My new calendar is out! It has twelve of my favourite river and lake paintings. Some are recent, and some my friends and followers have never seen. I've heard the comment more than once, "This is your best calendar yet, we love it!" Actually, I think so too, because water, especially moving water, is my favourite subject to paint. You can see more information and preview the calendar pages by clicking on the image of the calendar in the upper right hand column of the blog, or simply order yours by hitting the blue button under the thumbnail image of the calendar to your right. You can see it listed with our recent books at The Library of One Thing And Another .